KREUTZBERG.--A PRUSSIAN SUPPER AND CAROUSE.
Herr Kupferkram the elder, I have done thee wrong. I have set thee down
as a mere vender of sausages, and lo! thou holdest tavern and
eating-house; dispensing prandial portions of savoury delicacies in flesh
and vegetable, at the charge of six silver groschens the meal. I beg a
thousand pardons; and as a sincere mark of contrition, will consent to
swallow thy dinners for a while.
"Will the Herrn Tourniquet and Tuci," said the Frau Kupferkram one
morning, with a duck and a smirk, "do us the honour of supping with us
this evening? There will be a few friends, for this is the 'nahmenstag'
of our dear Gottlob, now in England."
"Liebe Frau Kupferkram, we shall be delighted!"
I ought, perhaps, to observe, that in Prussia, although a Protestant
country, the Catholic custom of commemorating the "saint" rather than the
"birth-day," is almost universal. The former is called the "nahmenstag,"
or name-day.
But the day is yet "so young," that nothing short of the most inveterate
gluttony could bend the mind at present upon the evening's festivity; and
moreover, the Berlin races have called us from the workshop and the cares
of labour, and our very souls are in the stirrups, eagerly panting for
the sport. My dear reader, how can I describe what I never saw? Did we
not expend two silver groschens in a programme of the races, and gloat
over the spirited engraving of a "flying" something, which was its
appropriate heading, and which you would swear was executed somewhere in
the neighbourhood of Holywell Street, Strand? Did we not grow hotter
than even the hot sun could make us, in ploughing through the sand, and
commit some careless uncivilities in struggling among the crowd that
hemmed the course as with a wall? See? Of course not! Nobody at the
Berlin races ever does see anything but the mounted police and the dust.
Yes, sir, lay out two dollars in a "card" for the grand stand, and fix it
in your hat-band like a turnpike ticket, and you may saunter through the
whole police-military cordon; but be one of the crowd, and trust to no
other aid than is afforded by your own eyes, and the said cordon will be
the extent of your vision.
A fig for the races! we will go and see the Kreutzberg instead. Our way
lies through the Halle gate--Halle, a town that belonged to the Saxons
before the French invasion, but lost through their adherence to Napoleon,
is now the seat of a Prussian university--and by the Place of the Belle
Alliance. What "alliance?" The alliance of sovereigns against
destruction, or of people against tyranny? One and both; but while the
union of the former has triumphed over the common leveller, the latter,
by whose aid it was effected, still drag their unrelenting chains. The
Kreutzberg is consecrated to the same magniloquent union, and bears upon
its head a military monument illustrative of the triumph of a roused and
indignant people against a great oppression; but alas! it does not record
the emancipation of that same people from intestine slavery. But that is
their business and not ours.
The Kreutzberg stands about a mile and a half from the city gates, and
rears its grey height like a mountain amid the general level, commanding
a prospect of thirty miles around. Berlin, half garden, half palace,
lies at your feet, rising majestically from the sandy plain, and
irregularly divided by the winding Spree. The surrounding country, by
its luxuriance, gives evidence of the energy of an industrious race
struggling against a naturally barren soil. Turning our eyes upwards
upon the military monument which graces the summit of the hill, we cannot
repress our gratification at its beauty. A terrace eighty feet in
diameter rises from the bare ground, and in its centre, upon a
substructure of stone, towers an iron temple or shrine in the turreted
Gothic style, divided into twelve chapels or niches. In each recess
stands a figure, life size, emblematical of the principal battles
(defeats included) fought in the campaigns of 1813, 1814, and 1815. A
noble cluster of idealised military heroism they stand; some in the
stubborn attitude of resistance, others in the eager impetuosity of
attack, all wonderfully spirited. When you have warmed your imagination
into a glow by the sight of these effigies of war, read and ponder over
this inscription:--
"The Sovereign to his People, who at his summons magnanimously poured
forth their Blood and Treasure for the Country. In Memory of the Fallen,
in Gratitude to the Living, as an Incitement to every future Generation."
One is tempted to add, "and of sacred promises still unfulfilled." There
is a beautiful garden and saloon called the Tivoli, close at hand, and
from our heroics we soon slide into the peaceful enjoyment of a "baisser"
and a cup of coffee; lounging luxuriantly among the flowers till the hour
approaches for our departure.
We are a snug little party of a dozen, not including Herr Kupferkram and
the Frau, who will insist upon waiting on us. There is the smug
master-butcher from round the corner, who has a very becoming sense of
his own position in society; two mild-spoken bookseller's clerks, who
scarcely find their voices till the evening is far advanced; my friend
and fellow-tramp the glovemaker; a spruce little model of a man, with the
crispest hair, and the fullest and best trimmed moustache in the world,
and who is no doubt a great man somewhere; a tremendous fellow of a
student, who talks of cannon-boots, rapiers, and Berliner Weiss Bier; and
an individual whose only distinguishing feature is his nose, and that is
an insult to polite society. The rest have no characteristics at all.
But ah! shall I forget thee, the beautiful Louise!--the affianced of
Gottlob, the blonde, the coquettish, and the gay! Have you not asked me,
in half confidence (Alcibiade being present), whether the German
"_geliebte_," is not changed in English into "_susses herz_,"
"sweet-heart," as Gottlob had told you in his last letter from London?
And you think the sentiment "so pretty and poetical!" And so it is; but
we dunderheads in England have used the word so often that we have half
forgotten its meaning.
Down we sit to supper; commencing with a delicate gravy soup and liver
fritters; following up with breaded pork-chops and red saurkraut;
continuing upon baked veal and prunes; not forgetting the _entremets_ of
green pease and finely-sliced carrots stewed in butter together; going on
with a well-made sallad; and winding up with a syllabub and preserves.
Hah! Bread unlimited, and beer without discretion. How can we sing
after all that and yet we do, and talk unceasingly. The tables are
cleared; and, accompanied by a beautiful tinkling of tiny bell-shaped
glasses, the china punch-bowl, odorous with its steaming orange fluid, is
placed at the head of the table. How the meek bookseller's clerks shine
out! They are all voice now. And we drink a "Lebe hoch!" to Gottlob far
away; and to Gottlob's mother, and to Gottlob's father, chinking our
glasses merrily every time, and draining them after each draught on our
thumb nails, to show how faithfully we have honoured the toasts. We
shout "Vivat h-o-o-o;" till the old German oven quakes again.
"Sing, fair Louise, I prithee sing!" Louise is troubled with a cold, of
course; and, after due persuasion, lisps and murmurs some incoherent
tremblings; exceedingly pretty, no doubt, if we could only make out what
they meant. Then the student, who, although diminutive, has the voice of
a giant, shouts a university song with the Latin chorus:--
"Edite, bebite, collegiales,
Post multa saecula procula nulla!"
"Eat ye then, drink ye then, social companions,
Centuries hence and your cups are no more!"
The mildest of the clerks comes out well with Kotzebue's philosophical
song:--
"Es kann ja nicht immer so bleiben,
Hier unter den wechselnden Mond;
Es bluht eine Zeit und verwelket,
Was mit uns die Erde bewhont."
"It cannot remain thus for ever,
Here under the changeable moon;
For earthly things bloom but a season,
And wither away all too soon."
The spruce gentleman with the crisp hair throws back his head, and with
closed eyes warbles melodiously:--
"Einsich bin ich nicht allein."
"Alone I'm not in solitude."
The butcher has forgotten his dignity, and joins vigorously in every
chorus. At this crisis Louise gracefully retires, leaving us to our
replenished bowl.
"My friends!" shouts the student, mounting on a chair, "listen to me for
a moment." And then he plunges into an eloquent discourse upon the
beauties of fraternity, and the union of nations, concluding his harangue
by proposing a "Lebe hoch" to Alcibiade and myself. Alcibiade is
decidedly the lion of the evening, and bears his honours gracefully, like
a well-tamed creature. "Se sollen leben! Vivat ho--o!" it roars in our
ears, and amid its echoes we duly acknowledge the compliment.
"That's beautiful!" exclaims the student, whose name, by the bye, is
Pimblebeck. "And now grant me one other favour. Thou Briton, and thou
son of France, let us drink brotherhood together. What say ye? Let it
be no longer 'you' and 'yours' between us, but 'thou' and 'thine.'"
Having reached the affectionate stage of exhilaration, we enter at once
into the spirit of the proposal, and each in his turn, glass in hand,
locking his arm in that of the enthusiastic Pimblebeck, drinks eternal
friendship: to love truly; to defend valiantly; and to address each other
by no other title than that of "thou" and "thee" for the rest of our
lives.
I confess to a certain obliviousness here; a mental haze, amid which the
mingled airs of "Rule Britannia" and the "Marsellaise" float
indistinctly. But above all, and through all, with terrible
distinctness, tones the voice of Pimblebeck; his boyish form dilated into
the dimensions of a Goliath, as he pours forth the words of a Prussian
revolutionary song, some few of which stand out in letters of fire in my
memory still, thus:--
"Prinzen vom Land hinaus,
Denn kommt der Burger Schmaus;
Aristokraten
Werden gebraten;
Fursten and Pfaffen die werden gehangt!"
"Drive out the prince and priest,
Then comes the burger's feast;
Each aristocrat
Shall broil in his fat,
And nobles and bigoted bishops be hanged."